For the past while, I have been fixated on the deaths of Tamir Rice, Mike Brown and Eric Garner. Every moment I have a second to think past work or social engagements, I find myself coming back to these two men and one child murdered.

Eric Garner’s killing especially as it was captured on camera, ruled as a homicide, with only one indictment – that of the man of colour who filmed it. Not an indictment of the white man who choked him to death. Not an indictment of the white man who choked him to death while ignoring Eric’s outreached hand and his voice gasping for breath, repeatedly trying to scream that he could not breathe.

He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe. He could not breathe.

Eleven times, Eric Garner repeated the words “I can’t breathe”, but no one listened. They heard, but they did not listen.

They heard and they continued to choke him until he died. On camera. White arms around his neck like a white rope, without a tree – but with roots. Roots so deep and institutionalized, entrenched within it’s police and military structures, a cavalier and unadulterated racism against the poor, the marginalized, the resource richness of other countries and those of colour. Always, those of colour. And me, I am of colour.

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